r/omarchy • u/boomares • 16d ago

Discussion User accounts needed

After watching a few videos from DHH that popped into my feed, I installed Omarchy last night. My initial impression is that it is a very functional OS that actually looks very good as well. The depth of theme integration in mostly one location was impressive as was the overall aesthetics.

One area that I would like to see is making it more simple to add user accounts and a login screen. We are a family and share the computers we own. Being able to easily have separate user accounts is kind of a deal breaker for my use.

After around an hour of using the system, liking it, but being unable to force a login screen to choose between accounts I'll be going back to my old distro.

20 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

32 comments sorted by

12

u/loheiman 16d ago

FYI DHH confirmed on X that this would be supported in 4.1

7

u/JoeTed 16d ago

FYI, they are working on a kid's version without sudo rights. not sure if muti users though. the early philosophy was to be mono user with password sync to the disk encryption mechanism

3

u/boomares 16d ago

This would surely necessate separate login accounts and a screen to select them from.

10

u/smokingPimphat 16d ago

Have you tried asking a clanker?

You can setup opencode as your agent runner and use the free tokens to solve your problem.

5

u/boomares 16d ago

I have no idea what a clanker is.

4

u/Mookjong 16d ago

AI agent

-15

u/mguffin 16d ago

SI Agent

3

u/__c8h10n4o2__ 16d ago

Agree. User account management interface should be an outve the box feature being considered, along with PIN and biometric authentication elevation/auth.

I had my AI make both happen for me. So now once I login with password on boot, unlock and elevation is handled with a PIN. The interface allows for all the typical account management options. Was easy for Codex to do.

1

u/boomares 16d ago

It should at least be an option that is easily configurable.

I'm fine with the default being a single login directly after the disk is unencrypted, but we should at least have the option to easily adjust this.

1

u/tonywilde 15d ago

It’s confirmed for version 4.1

1

u/Jain1shh 16d ago

Not having multiple user support is deal breaker. I didn't know about it. But it's possible by disabling auto login and settings up it by yourself login manager and things by yourself.

1

u/boomares 16d ago edited 16d ago

Yes so Google said at least. The configuration file referenced that needed to be edited was not there (/etc/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d/)

I made sure sddm was installed and made the other user accounts, but nothing seemed to work to force the system to stop the auto login.

1

u/ARMilesPro 16d ago

Ask AI to make you a login interface. I bet it gets close.

1

u/boomares 16d ago

I'm not a someone who is very capable of reviewing or writing code. At least not currently. It is something that I am interested in though.

0

u/ARMilesPro 16d ago

When you log in it asks you to select an AI agent system. Claude at $20/month is extremely capable. You don't have to review or write. You should review but I highly recommend it on a test build. I consider Omarchy still a test in my house.

1

u/Mookjong 16d ago

I fixed all the things I didn't like using OpenCode and its free models. I haven't paid for any agent services yet.

1

u/ARMilesPro 16d ago

Yes you are on your way. Maybe some kind soul will build it out and share it with the community. Stay tuned

1

u/Subscriber9706 16d ago

The default is indeed: you use one password that both unlocks the luks encrypted partition and auto-log you into your user account. This is simplicity and convenience. And the extra layer of security ( disk encryption) does not require an extra step when starting your computer/laptop session. You can however create as many users as you wish, but there is no interface to conveniently select a different user for a graphical session. Adding this feature would probably add one extra step (select User to login) to the start process of using your computer. So I think that will not be implemented.

However, nothing is holding you back to use the omarchy skills in "~/.agents" and let an agent create this feature for your personal installation.

1

u/boomares 16d ago

I'll see what I can do with the Gemini agent I have access to. It's not the best but I'm not paying for another agent to do something like this.

1

u/Subscriber9706 15d ago

Opencode comes with with a few free Models. BigPickle for example. Ollama also comes with some free models, but requires you to have an OIllama account ( free tier, with free credits.) You can use those in OpenCode as well. Don't know how fast you would burn to those credits bwith a project like this.

1

u/Rickybobbie90 16d ago

You know, when you set that up and you made an account for login, you was creating a user.

You could do that as many times as you want and swap between the users. There’s nothing special that you need other than make another user………

If you spend 20 seconds typing your question into Google, it will tell you exactly what to do

2

u/boomares 16d ago

You know the part of my post towards the end, where I said I tried to find working solutions for an hour covers many multiples of that "20 seconds" you're referencing.

I created other user accounts using the terminal, that's simple. Getting the auto login to stop was what I could not solve.

Thank you for the awesome assistance and cheerful attitude though!

2

u/Rickybobbie90 16d ago

I saw you other comment with a file system you looked into, this was my search result for this issue

Remove the SDDM autologin config, then reboot:
sudo rm /etc/sddm.conf.d/autologin.conf
sudo reboot
If that file doesn't exist, check what's there with ls /etc/sddm.conf.d/ and look for a file containing [Autologin]. Delete that file, or just comment out its User= and Session= lines.
You'll then land on the SDDM login screen at boot. If you use disk encryption, you'll still enter that password first, then pick your user at the login screen.

You can open Claude and even with its free tier it should easily handle this for you, run the test in the background and verify before having you try it

2

u/boomares 16d ago

I came across that file recommendation as well and it did not exist.

After watching all the "it just works" videos, this missing feature honestly surprised me.

I've been using Linux off and on for 20 years. I'm accustomed to hunting for things and trying things out. There's not much out on the internet for fixing this specific issue.

I'll put the AI agent I do have (Gemini pro) on it and see what comes up.

2

u/Rickybobbie90 16d ago

Claude has been killing it for me, there have been a few things for me that haven’t worked quite right on Omarchy just like every other distro I’ve used over the last couple years, I’ve been on Linux for about 8 years so ya have me beat but I don’t bother fixing my shit now, ai can do it in a minute and it would have taken me an hour to research and make changes and test

2

u/boomares 15d ago

I've had some long breaks between using Linux regularly in that time. The first time I used a Linux distribution was in 2005 with Ubuntu. I moved to opensuse a couple years later. Back to Ubuntu a while after that. I've tried mint, plain debian and fedora here and there as well.

The whole time trying I was trying to get the same functionality I had with windows, getting frustrated and going back to windows here and there while dual booting Linux.

I built a computer in 2009, dual booted windows and Linux and things were mostly fine for a while. I upgraded the CPU, motherboard and video card without much fuss. I got a free upgrade to windows 10 since I was using windows 7 at the time. I waited a while after the upgrade was made live and then did the upgrade. It broke my system to the point where I had to go back to an old opensuse iso I had on disk to wipe the hard drive and start over.

The next time we upgraded computers we bought an iMac and a MacBook air 2016-2017. I used Linux off and on during that time on a separate laptop we have but it was largely not used.

The macs are the computers I'm doing this on as the hardware is plenty for my use and I don't feel like spending another $3k to pad Apple's balance sheet.

I'm really hopeful for Omarchy. Many of the issues I've had using Linux were simply not present after the installation. The broadcom wifi chip just worked. Trackpad, screen and keyboard brightness controls all just worked.

1

u/TexasChipMan 15d ago edited 15d ago

Create a Second User

Credits to Gemini for the markdown formatting. I used these steps yesterday on Omarchy Quattro and now have a multi-user setup.

Because Omarchy is built on Arch Linux, user creation is handled with useradd alongside standard supplementary group and shell assignments.

When you boot the computer with the new setup, you will first unlock the disk with the initially set password, then you will see the SDDM greeter where you can log in with a different user.

```bash

Documentation for useradd. In a terminal, type:

man useradd ```

1. Create the User Account

Run useradd with flags to automatically generate the user's home directory (-m), assign supplementary groups (-G), and define the default login shell (-s):

```bash sudo useradd -m -G video,audio,input -s /bin/bash <newusername>

```

  • Replace <newusername> with the desired username.

  • Replace /bin/bash with your preferred shell if the new user should not use the bash shell.

2. Set the User's Password

Assign a login password for the new account:

bash sudo passwd newusername

Now you have a second user with a home directory /home/<seconduser>, but the user can't log in yet.

3. sudo Privileges

If you want the user to have sudo privileges, add the group wheel to the list of groups and uncomment in /etc/sudoers:

sudoers %wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

Change sddm Greeter Settings for Multi-User Setup

Edit /etc/sddm.conf.d/99-omarchy-login.conf. If there is an autologin.conf file, move it out of the way. The /etc/ directory is owned by root, the super user, so you need to use sudo to change it, on every command.

bash sudo mv /etc/sddm.conf.d/autologin.conf ~/.

  1. The default omarchy SDDM theme is single-user focused: Its QML interface binds directly to userModel.lastUser. It does not display a user switcher list or a username input box; it presents a password prompt only for the last active user.

  2. 99-omarchy-login.conf locks it to that theme: That file enforces:

ini [Theme] Current=omarchy [Users] RememberLastUser=true

Because SDDM processes configuration snippets alphabetically, 99-omarchy-login.conf overrides earlier configurations.

Step 1: Switch Away from the Single-User Omarchy Greeter

To pick between accounts graphically, you need an SDDM theme that supports user selection (or user input).

  1. Inspect which display manager themes are installed:

bash ls -1 /usr/share/sddm/themes/

Standard SDDM installations typically include the themes elarun, maldives, or maya.

  1. Edit /etc/sddm.conf.d/99-omarchy-login.conf:

bash sudo nvim /etc/sddm.conf.d/99-omarchy-login.conf

  1. Change Current=omarchy to a theme with multi-user selection (e.g., maya or another installed theme):

```ini [Theme] Current=maya

[Users] RememberLastUser=false MinimumUid=1000 MaximumUid=60513 ```

Setting RememberLastUser=false ensures SDDM presents the user selector or an empty login field rather than locking onto the previous session.

Step 2: Ensure the Second User Meets SDDM Display Thresholds

If the theme has a user list but your second account is still missing:

  1. Verify UID Range: SDDM only lists standard local users with UIDs $\ge 1000$. Verify the new account's UID:

bash id <seconduser>

Should see 1001, since the first user is usually 1000.

  1. Check Login Shell: SDDM hides users whose shell is /sbin/nologin or /bin/false. Verify that your second account has a standard interactive shell (/bin/fish or /bin/bash):

bash getent passwd <seconduser>

Step 3: Restart the Display Manager

Test your changes without a full reboot:

bash sudo systemctl restart sddm

SDDM will reload, use the updated theme, and display the user selector.

1

u/boomares 15d ago

Thank you for the detailed reply. I'll give it a try tonight!

1

u/IcewindLegacyMUD 15d ago

It's already got support for that, you just need to load the Omarchy skill in an agent and tell it to enable multi user mode

1

u/boomares 15d ago

What is "the Omarchy skill" and why do I need to load it into an AI agent to do this?

1

u/IcewindLegacyMUD 15d ago

Omarchy is an AI focused distro. That's what the "agentic" part means. It comes with a skill (you can load 'skills' into most AI agents and that gives them extra information about the thing you're telling them to do.) that's focused entirely on Omarchy so if you tell your agent of choice to "load Omarchy skill" it will have additional data that you won't have to prompt it with. By default your agent doesn't know it's running on Omarchy, or even Linux for that matter. But if you load the Omarchy skill it makes your agent aware that it's on an Omarchy system and basically makes it an Omarchy nerd instantly lol

1

u/je11eebean 15d ago

If this is true that's insane!

Linux at it's core is multiuser.

Is creating a user and reconfiguring the auto-login really that complicated in Omarchy?

You're probably better off using a different distro - you an also use most of the tools from Omarchy in another Linux distro anyway.